29.3 Europe: a.d. 1401 to 1500  (Page 6/16)

Hungary

Hungary, along with the Balkans and Poland, sent cattle on the hoof to Germany and Venice. Sigismund (actually Bohemian) was King of Hungary as the century opened and soon became Holy Roman Emperor. It was under his reign that a peasant revolt broke out over tithe money in the Transylvania region (now a part of Romania). This resulted in an institution called "The Union of the Three Nations" under which the nobles of Transylvania, along with the Saxons and the Szekels, formed a league for mutual defense against all except the king. Sigismund was followed by a young Polish king, Vladislav V, who was called Ulaszlo by the Hungarians.

At that time, Janos Hunyadi, son of a lesser noble of Vlach origin, who had been rapidly promoted in the army, defeated the Turks in Transylvania in 1442 and then, with King Vladislav V, undertook a Balkan campaign where eventually they were disastrously defeated and the king was killed. The heir was yet a baby so his uncle, Emperor Frederick, left Hunyadi in charge of Hungary, as regent. In 1456 the regent fought and defeated the Turks beyond Belgrade and had no further trouble with them for many years. The young king died soon after Hunyadi's death and there ensued a scramble for the throne. Finally, the nobles elected Hunyadi's son, Matyas (Matthias or Mathew). He was a true Renaissance prince, who fought 4 wars with the German Emperor Frederick III, finally gaining Lower Austria and Styria for his domains. This first Austro-Hungarian Empire was thus Hungarian. When Matyas died with no heir, the Hungarians took Vladislas Jagiella, another Bohemian king, as their own. Lower Austria was then given back to the current emperor, Maximilian. (Ref. 124 )

Czechoslovakia

The phenomenon of earning wages by hiring out as a laborer was early seen in the mines of Bohemia. The considerable investment required for equipment for deep mines could be made only by merchants, who then paid men to do the work. (Ref. 292 ) As a source of energy, horizontal water wheels were still used in Bohemia at this time. (Ref. 260 ) We have seen in the paragraphs immediately above that there was a close association at this period, of Bohemia with Hungary.

As early as 1410 Germans and Czechs had clashed at the University of Prague over the papal schism and the German teachers and students had left and gone to Saxony, where they eventually founded the University of Leipsig. Under the reign of Wenceslaus IV, John Huss, a priest of Prague, began to preach the doctrines of Wycliff, challenging image worship, auricular confession, many ornate rites, indulgences and the existence of purgatory. The Church banished him and eventually burned him at the stake as an heretic, along with his friend and supporter, Jerome. The news of Huss' death caused the Bohemian Revolution of 1415 to 1436, in which the people denounced the death and declared that they would fight to defend the doctrines of Christ against the man-made decrees of the Church. They formulated the "Four Articles of Prague", as follows: